Saturday, February 10, 2007

You may want to heed this advice in the near future, because a time is coming when machines will be able to read your intentions with amazing accuracy. As brain scans become more and more sophisticated, researchers are devising ways of reading them in order to figure out what you're planning to do. Sound a bit Minority Report? Exactly. NewScientist.com reports:

Brain scans that can read a person’s secret intentions even before they act have been demonstrated by researchers.

In a recent study, the technology was 70% accurate at predicting whether participants planned to add or subtract a pair of numbers. Paralysed people may one day be able to use devices based on the technique to carry out complex actions, the researchers say. However, ethical concerns have been raised about its possible use in interrogation.

So the old warning will someday soon hold true. Don't even think about it.